


Cornflowers for our brothers

by asemic



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, References to Depression, References to Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21572353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asemic/pseuds/asemic
Summary: Edward Little and Solomon Tozer are the last survivors. They walk.
Relationships: Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 18
Kudos: 59





	Cornflowers for our brothers

The quiet burned with a rawness ice to bare skin left. He once longed for snatches of silence, those memories now layers he wrapped like coats and blankets around his ever-shrinking frame. Then, in the before times, they had small joys and company. Pleasures of shared smiles and long-winded tales of home. Hope. 

Now he followed with worn soles and a worn soul, weary and alone. When they return he'd be questioned, martialed likely. How would he spin his own long-winded story? He lacked talent with words. _Here,_ Edward Little would start, _our story begins with a woman and a bear and ends with deaths the essence of life wrenched from men._ Mussels loosened from their shells, their mouths wide like clams with bellies split and steaming like a roast. 

He hungered. The cans spoiled, he told them. The neatly bearded panel with their gluttonous bellies spilled over their waistbands, the tight spaces of their teeth coated in their morning meal. The cans spoiled and the environment oppressive and unyielding to time or effort. And how did he survive? Because he chased after a prisoner and did not defend and die with the rest. Because he followed Solomon Tozer and hid until the screaming faded and the bear shuddered its last. Because he followed him now. 

How did he survive? Well, surely they would not. 

*

“Should share a tent.” 

Tozer held the support until he smacked it from his hand. The canvas dipped and the entire structured threatened its imminent collapse. 

“It’ll be easier to share than fight these into position.” 

The pangs of frustration forced his back to Tozer, his hands bracing and maneuvering the pieces until it held straight and steady. If Tozer assumed he’d receive even a glance of assistance he could continue to stand and wait. Edward entered then curled around the remains of his life and stared into the void until the stones outside shifted and left him be. 

*

They found a vole. There was no need to cook it so they divided it in half and picked it clean. What else remained to be said? No longer do they speak in hopes, no longer do they speak at all. They skinned and split and ate it raw, taking care of the small bones. Mustn’t choke, though would a sudden, jarring death be worse than this crawl to their ends? Small little bites. To think they held their weapons in the chance they spotted game. In the chance one finally fell into madness their fight would begin with their fingers on the trigger. Tozer was the better shot. Clean kill, dead and field dressed before he hit the ground, Edward Little splayed and made delicious in the custom of the sea. 

They found a vole. Weren’t they eating cow’s head years before? His stomach no longer groaned at the memories of briney vegetables and fleshy plump and pale macaroni floating on a plate. Like maggots, they looked and trembled, but he’d eat them with silver forks, those wriggling black-headed creatures on bone china. He dropped his head to his pack and tried to swallow a bit of rest before they marched forward. A nudge to the shoulder jarred him. 

“I found some holes and have an idea.” Tozer held up a bag of tobacco and a thin pipe. 

“Surely they’d be driven further below ground or escape elsewhere,” Edward warned. Tozer snorted and shifted from a squat to a seated position. 

“Then we don’t try. We sit here and imagine them scrabbling under us while they come and go.” It became a dare to action salted and peppered with understanding. If they let their best chance to find food go the fault remained with Edward Little. 

Bag in hand Edward hovered in position. “At the ready,” he called across the small distance.

Tozer worked a mass of tobacco into the hole and began to blow the smoke deeper into the tunnels. Every so often he’d turn his head and cough then appear to speak. Curses and pleas, prayers. All that Edward could not say aloud but which ran through his mind nearly every waking hour. Even in his twitching, shallow sleep did he scream and rail and chew their situation. But he swallowed it down like bile and let it boil in his belly and pass through his seized bowels. 

A sudden thump and the bag shook with movement. The frantic and pitched squeal was soon joined by several more. Edward called to Tozer with hysterical shouts. He no longer could form words, only an overjoyed yell while the bag filled with the wiggling, objecting creatures. When they were certain they got all of them he and Tozer carefully knotted the bundle and held it like a swaddled newborn. He did not know why he began to weep over the writhing leather bag. Nor did he understand why Tozer did not hesitate to draw him close. 

*

They made a little drying station out of string. Fourteen little rodents were better than swallowing rocks and sharp displeasure. The bones they ground into a sort of flour meal to rub against their tongues, the innards eaten right away. Tiny little hearts and floppy little lungs slipped down their throats. Their skins they set aside. Tozer pinned one to his chest like a well-earned medal. Sometimes Edward believed their current situation was as merited, God pinning their struggling bodies to His great form before setting them under glass. 

“How’d he sway you?” He needed to know. Tozer ceased his work, a clumsy attempt to sew some pelts into something. Edward questioned once more when the extended silence rang like bells. 

Tozer sniffed then shrugged. “Crozier was going to abandon us. No man ought to dedicate their loyalty to another who won’t extend the courtesy.” 

Edward’s stomach rolled around his hastily swallowed meal. He stated it so matter-a-factly like he recited a lesson. The captain was loyal to the end. That venom-tongued creature knew nothing about the exposed and now frozen heart of Francis Crozier. 

“He danced, didn’t he? The man who captured your loyalty.” Hatred dripped from his voice and curled his fingers like a noose. The lashing words struck and left its mark when Tozer’s head snapped up to attention. Eyes narrow and his jaw as tight. “What did he offer you?”

“What no one else could. Nice of Crozier to let him linger. Twenty minutes was it?” 

“Should have been a sight for eternity,” Edward spat. Vengeance was a moral failing; John would have disapproved. But he was gone, gutted and arranged by that animal. 

“He’s still swinging. Gibbeted in this hellhole. We can go back if it’ll delight you. Say hello to everyone else. Maybe wolves are about and we can pick them off for dinner.” 

Now Edward stayed his tongue, the memory of bodies and the stink of blood left him dizzy. 

“Fourteen little voles hanging in a row.” Tozer sniffed and picked through the stones, tucking some in the little pouch he made. “Fifteen and sixteen sit here waiting. What’s your number, Lieutenant?”

*

Silence blanketed their walks again and the days crawled on ahead. They kept their distance but remained in sight as they carried their packs and weapons. Unwilling to be left with nothing they divided the animals in half. Edward considered it fair since they worked together to collect the things. Did fair count anymore for them? It seemed such concepts collapsed the further they stomped their way to somewhere. 

How quickly they abandoned the concept of a tent, both tucking their bodies under canvas. Tozer looked like a lump under his, easily mistaken for detritus if you did not know what hid beneath. Edward worked to hold his up enough so he did not feel entombed. More humid air; everything felt sodden: his wools, his slops, his boots, socks, body. He sagged and moved loosely, his flesh pulling from the bones, the skin from the rest. 

Edward was ready to move by the time Tozer rolled into view. They exchanged a glance before he walked off to squat and stretch. Their feet led them somewhere in the hope somewhere would bring them home. 

“He had a mouth.” Edward jumped at the sudden intrusion into his thoughts. “That’s what he offered.”

“Dirtiness,” Edward remembered. Tozer being complicit shocked him. “Did you offer yourself or take?”

“Both, though it’s doubtful it’d make a difference to anyone. I missed being fucked. How many lashings will you give me for that transgression?”

A sudden shock of laughter erupted from Edward's mouth. “I have barely the momentum to walk forward and upright, let alone to administer punishment. You’re free to fuck the ground if you so want,” he said sardonically. 

“Don’t even get hard anymore. Can’t even have that.” 

Edward frowned, even more of a pathetic shell of a man now that he mentioned their shared physical weakness. He didn’t dream of women anymore and frankly, the thought repulsed him. Present a woman who did not offer a thick gravied slice of roast surrounded by fist-sized potatoes with ribbons of steam looping from their fluffy centered bodies. He’d toss her aside until he found one who fucking did. No, his cock didn’t matter while he would scrape sponge batter from the bowl and tip jars of preserves down his gullet. 

“That’s what I miss the most, beyond knowing I’m safe. Being touched.” He never sounded more introspective. As if Tozer could truly be capable of thought considering he did a man who buggered the rest of them with ease. 

“So you turned to that devil?” 

“Our heads turn when the mind wanders. I wanted and got and here I am.” Tozer began fumbling in his pocket and tossed the lumpy ball he made to occupy his hands as they moved. “I’ve lost enough and gained less.” 

Bastard spoke like he alone experienced grief on this journey. Edward lost friends and a purpose, watched the men he loved like brothers collapse in on themselves like rotting wood. Indistinguishable rows of dead now; didn’t matter if they were burned or torn apart or murdered. No honorable burial for them, no fellows to sew their nostrils close. Dead reckoning alone would mark their graves, bones and bodies scattered to the elements. Torn apart by history. Number sixteen left dangling by the rope. 

The painful burn in his lungs and joints flared violently as he stalked ahead. He could no longer ignore the blisters oozing in his boots or how the sharp rocks seemed to puncture his worn soles. All too often he reacted to stress by setting his jaw and falling silent. What could he do now but feel the fraying rope tethering to the remainder of his dignity begin to give? He heard a despairing sigh. 

The anchor dropped. 

Tozer collapsed to the ground under Edward’s pummeling. What little strength he could afford went into every blow. The impotence of his decisions, all leading him to hide with a mutineer, a man who willingly sucked the prick of a man who pissed himself while his feet twitched. His own impotence, his cock hanging useless signaling the eventual death of the rest. Edward Little hungered and smacked it into a grimacing face.

Then his head snapped back and fell into nothing. 

*

“Feel better?” Tozer’s voice came from beneath the waves, muffled under layers of plush goose down feathers from a freshly plucked and stuffed meal. No, he felt like the sludge clinging to a bilge pump. When he blinked too many bloody faces spun like a wheel. His head split violently, each throb forcing a roaring rush through his veins. “You tried and failed. Don’t ever again.”

Edward struggled to sit up; his weak arms supported him for a moment before collapsing. He chose to remain in a prone position. “I got you, didn’t I?”

“No,” the now singular Tozer smirked. The fat, split lip said otherwise. From everything they knew it would remain open and oozing until Tozer stumbled and finally moved his last.

“I’m surprised you did not leave me.” 

Tozer peeled a thread-thin meat fiber and chewed. “Nah, Marines don’t leave men behind.” Damnable lies from someone who previously conspired to abandon the rest and steal their dwindling supplies. All to aid a butcher. 

Edward crawled forward on his belly until he reached Tozer’s thigh. Using him for leverage he raised up until he could speak his foul breath into his nose. “Liar,” he exhaled.

“Next time I will,” Tozer sneered with equally disgusting, inflamed gums. Edward scanned the rest of his face and noted the dark circles under his fatigue, red eyes. His skin appeared cracked like sun-damaged leather with the faint grey tinge of salt-caked wood. “Give me a reason to not end it here and now.”

Because Edward Little craved life. No amount of rage could dilute their shared goal; this entire endeavor happened because they wanted to live. He did. Edward dropped heavily to the ground and watched the clouds shift above. The wind still blew and somewhere water flowed. Life continued. 

He feared he would not. 

*

Tozer carved a strip of white-bloomed chocolate from the block and draped it over his tongue. Edward waved another away and curled in on himself. The night approached, darkness slowly blanketing him. Along with it came the growing awareness surrounding the frailties of his mouth. Beyond the stink came his speckled, dry tongue made wet by the blood seeping from his gums. His teeth never had a hole or twinged in pain. Now they threatened to swing like doors or-

“Did you fear the noose? Were you scared of death?”

They shared a glance, but Tozer’s shadowed face betrayed nothing. Edward transformed into an unfolded letter gloved fingers greedily skimmed. His usual stoicism trembled and failed: his worries carved below his eyes, crusted the corners with fatigue, and made trenches above his brow. He flicked at the dreadful thoughts like a scab and waited for it to finally lift. Maybe exposure would help him heal. 

They no longer heal. 

“No. You readying yourself?” The question gained form and suspended in the air. Like a dangling body, like voles, like their very existence. A great hand would snatch and place them on the butcher’s block. Drive a nail into an eel’s head, skin, gut, cook them sweet. They wiggled during preparation like dancers. Like Hickey. “You aren’t dying, you’re tired. Come here.” 

Tozer didn’t wait for Edward’s response and shifted over. Any complaints fell silent at the chance to have his weight supported not by rocks or his creaking bones. Heat radiated around him like distant memories of comfort. Once, the ocean moved and his friends lived. They laughed and dreamed. Together, they were. 

“Were you frightened?” 

“I was, but not of dying. I worried about what was beyond. What sort of paradise awaits men like us?” 

Relief. He wished to wake from the unrelenting toil of their wandering. Relief, a chance to fall asleep and not worry about the next failing bit of his body. _What now_ welcomed him upon rising. _What next_ lulled him to an uneasy slumber. He sank a bit deeper against Tozer’s chest. “We must set up our tents.”

Tozer reached back and dragged the canvas over them. Darkness swallowed the space and they shifted closer together to keep some friendly heat in. A meaty hand firmly stroked from his shoulder to his wrist and back. For a moment they were people, more than flesh and hunger. 

“We did this too. He held me and we shared our futures.” 

Edward and Tozer did not. 

*

What he carried from the remnants of the camp: 

Francis Crozier, glove, one; packet of letters, unopened.  
George Hodgson, palm-sized looking glass, cracked.  
Thomas Jopson, ivory comb.  
James Fitzjames, four buttons.  
John Irving, Bible, torn.

More, the satchel's weight gathered the specters of the rest. 

_Here_ , Edward Little began, _our stories ended at a successful hanging. A murderer dangled and we had only moments more to breathe._

A sudden and violent end spared them this pain. All bones look the same and the rope’s groan against the gallows carried their voices. 

*

Shaking roused him. He attempted to twist from Tozer’s grip, but the fingers clawing his front burrowed and tore harder. Tozer let out a cry of protest at every thrash and sobbed like a child into Edward’s hair. His heavy arms trussed Edward like a roast, tight butcher’s twine squeezing his waist. No calls woke him from his particular nightmare; time alone slowed them to trembles. 

“I dreamed of him.” Small pin-pricks and cuts in the canvas cast scattered freckles across Tozer’s face. It caught the lines of blood and mucus streaking around his nose and cold burned cheeks. 

“Hickey.” 

“Heather.” 

He fell silent and Edward did not press. This he understood, the loss of friends and vulnerable men left in his care. Though he directed the soothing sounds into Tozer’s temple he hoped to silence his own pain. 

*

The final bit of vole meat. 

“I don’t even want to eat it. Means we’re starting again.”

Edward nodded. The shriveled strip resembled a wood chip and moved as stiffly. 

“You take it.” Tozer flipped it towards him and Edward secured it in his palm. Even a snowblind fool saw his sudden generosity came from an uneasy place. _You take it_. The sudden wind felt warmer than Tozer’s defeated tone. His own hope evaporated and left him dried and miserable like the stiff meat in his hand. 

“Get up. We’re walking.”

“Where?” Tozer pulled his sleep sack around his neck. 

“Home. I will not leave you to die. I will not leave a man behind.” 

The wind moved. They remained frozen in place.

*

A whole day passed. 

Tozer remained a pitiful lump when Edward joined him. He felt so damn small, his once strong body reduced to layers of clothing. Gaunt and grey, bearded and miserable. The words applied to both of them. He held him and shared tales belonging to other men. Edward Little had nothing but grief lately, but he tried. 

“I loved that woman better than any man she had before,” he chuckled. 

Tozer finally stirred and Edward brushed the hair from his forehead. “I doubt that. If she met me you’d feel it.” 

Edward reached for the shred of meat and placed it onto Tozer’s peeling lips. They parted and a curious tongue cupped it. “Open.”

*

The knife hacked rather than glide, but Edward completed his task. A bit of kindness for a man who outran their end by his side. He blew the tuft of hair from the back of Tozer’s neck and swept his fingers to check its evenness. Thank goodness he didn’t offer to do his beard: Edward would constantly be confronted by his poor work. At least no one else could see the back of his head.

“I am not paying you for sloppiness,” Tozer joked. Even his attempt to sound like a disapproving gentleman suffocated under his sneering vowels. Much could be crushed under Solomon Tozer. Hickey, likely, when they received. Tozer protested when Edward flicked his ear and hurdled all sorts of threats in his direction. 

“When we return home I’ll pay to neaten you again.” They would wash. He’d luxuriate for as long as the water held warmth and the soap made suds. Beside him Tozer splashed in a tub equally frothy and steaming. Together they’d sling a towel around their waists and wander the bathhouse enjoying the lightness stemming from comfort. Later, they’d don their stiff garments and return to their proper places. 

Edward drew the ivory comb through the flipped ends of Tozer’s hair. Too many strands shed with every pull. Enough of that. “See an improvement,” Tozer asked. 

One final brush of his fingers to his neck. “Let’s go.” 

*

He slept more. Usually, when he waved off Tozer’s attempts to wake him he’d eventually be left alone. Not now, his face lightly slapped and broken pieces of words slowly processed. 

“Remnants......camp...Edw...camp...a camp beyond a hill.” 

Edward’s eyes snapped wide open and he lurched up. A sudden wave of dizziness meant he needed to be helped and held and guided up. “A camp? Did we walk in a circle?” 

“It’s one of theirs. I puttered about for a bit since there’s little else to do while you laze about. Look, I reckon a child left behind this.” He held up a small carved sled. Edward gasped and cupped the object with care; while it felt sturdy it was more precious than any jewel. The sled had little dots tooled in along the side and two holes for a string. 

“Where?” He mouthed it over and over before silencing himself. He kissed the cold surface of their hope given form. 

“You awake enough to move?” Edward struggled to his feet, his vision slurring black before focusing. “Good answer.” 

They collected their things with the rocks surprisingly soft and springy, the weather balmy and not its usual numbing cold, the items they carried light. The sled buoyed their weight, the sled glided them towards the hill and revealed their chance. 

Together they determined the size of the camp, small in comparison to what they’ve endured before their numbers were cut down. Four tent indentations and signs of a small fire. Nothing else remained save for sled marks flowing in opposite directions, from when they came and went. 

“Is this where we split,” Edward asked after they debated the path to take. Say no, Tozer. Please. But he held his tongue and would not beg. 

“If we do, we’ll die.” Tozer swept his arm between the two paths. “Your choice,” he sighed. 

Edward grasped Tozer’s hand and moved it like a pointer in the only direction that made sense. Tozer’s choice. He got a quick squeeze of wordless thanks then a firmer exchange of pressure. “Let’s go, Solomon,” and they continued hand-in-hand.

*

“Your lip hasn’t healed.”

“Nor has your ego,” Solomon chuckled. His coated tongue darted out to lap the sour colored ooze leaking from his swollen cut. A kick of regret buried itself deeper into Edward’s chest. If the likely infection ended up killing him then Edward deserved to meet the Devil. They shared a sleeping bag now, the other used to provide a bit of a cushion for their burning joints. The canvas had enough tears to illuminate their faces, but even the sun didn’t disturb their sleep. 

Sometimes Solomon would hold him and rock him. Even while they walked their hands met then their arms looped around weary shoulders and they’d sway. They stood on an ocean of bleached rock and became a ship gently caressed by the waves. An inadvertent press of their hips moved from awkward apologies into needed motivation. Edward cupped Solomon’s hands in his and bring them to his lips like they held broth or port, something bracing to drink. His worn woolen gloves stank like the rest of them, but he breathed him in and found energy. 

“Did he love you?” The rocks scattered when Solomon’s rhythmic gate faltered. Edward slowed and waited for him to fall back into step. When a hand knocked into his he did not hesitate to grasp him. 

“I like to imagine he did. Leaves a man with some meaning in his life.” Solomon’s head remained bowed, the tips of his boots suddenly fascinating. 

“I hope he did for your sake.” 

They camped. 

Edward held Solomon to his chest, the pressure too much to bear but he refused to release him. They were aligned; any other time he’d shove him away with a reminder of propriety. But who would speak against them now? Neither God nor man bore witness. Only the ground and their red-rimmed eyes. 

“I’m useless,” Solomon whispered, his mouth carrying a rotten, sweet stink of blackened fruit. Still, Edward would eat the wormed fig from a tree, the shriveled crabapple on the ground, the white-fuzzed lemon in a bowl. Edward brought their noses together, the only red-tipped hardness they could meet. 

“We’re like masts.” Edward tightened his arms and Solomon dipped his head to his neck. “We are stiff and ready.”

“We’re in a home on a hill.” They rocked and sunlight streamed light into their bedroom. Outside the birds called and branches moved with the wind. “We got piles of food waiting for us.” 

Their jaws rubbed and fingers laced while they built their world. Golden skinned chicken with glazed vegetables, thick aspics wiggling with cold fish and meat, fresh fruit they crushed over their working, clean, perfect bodies. They were hard and whole and loved, dinner a mere arm’s length away. They didn’t orgasm, but the pleasure remained intense enough to leave them shuddering. 

“Bet all the women you had before felt that.” Pure laughter bubbled like sparkling wine from Edward’s mouth and continued to burst out their lungs like grapes plucked from the stem. The grass blew and the little town below their hill bustled with over one-hundred men strong. 

*

Their hands sought and found, their fingers linked and clutched. The embraces lingered. 

_Here,_ Edward Little started, _our story began at their endings. A tale of two men who wandered and walked. Fatigued, our eyes shut and blinked wide towards the horizon._

Their pace slowed and grew labored, the pauses lengthened. The grooves the sleds dug into the rocks disappeared and forced them to wander aimlessly in the hopes they’d discover something. Anything. From time to time Solomon would ask to see the sled and wonder about its owner. 

“A little boy made this with his father. Maybe his little fingers gripped a tool and made the holes.” His eyes grew hazy, his split lip opening as he smiled. “I reckon I’d be a fine father. Us Tozers are producers. Not too late for me.” 

The silence bulged like a belly and pushed Edward into discomfort. After three breaths he spoke. “What will you say to the child? When we find this boy?”

Solomon merely smiled and extended his hand, the sled trembling in his palm. 

*

Only them. 

The roaring in his ears filled the silence, the grind of bones reminded him of death. The hand in his kept him alive. They tended to each other like an elderly couple in their twilight. His body ached and Solomon ached but they hauled each other forward. 

“Our house on a hill,” Edward began. Needed to be built and maintained. The townspeople needed their Bible and comb and buttons. His friends could not be forgotten. The boy. His sled looked so large now in Solomon’s hand. No one told him the world was so large and they so small. But they would not stop. If they dropped only then, but they would live for a bit more. They breathed. So they lived. 

They walked.

A hill. Solomon cursed and Edward dug his weak fingers between the rocks and took it as a crawl. Slowly they reached the top and slid down on worn soles. Stumbled most of the way, Solomon nearly falling head over until he caught his balance. 

They walked. 

A sound. 

A lie, a trick of his ears, the roaring deafened him and his mind filled in what he wanted. Sometimes he tasted grass and mud and smelled cologne. 

A lie. Solomon nudged him and shuffled forward at a quicker pace. Edward saw the column of smoke and smelled the oil. The wind shifted and carried laughter. Solomon tossed his packs to the ground and fumbled in his pocket. 

They lumbered forward towards the noises, towards the clattering, towards the voices. 

Forward. 

Faces. New faces stared at them, some retreated to the tents while others moved closer in concern. Blind with tears and speechless in his relief, Edward reached for Solomon and trapped their hands together. Through the veil and heaving sobs, he watched Solomon extend his right hand in offering. A child let out an excited cry.


End file.
